Using firm-level data covering 709 cities in 128 countries, we examine the role of a comprehensive list of business and institutional environment variables at the sub-national level in explaining firm employment and productivity growth. We find basic protection (with corruption as an element),...

This paper offers a thesis for why the US overtook the UK and other European countries in the 20th century in both aggregate and per capita GDP as a case study of recent models of endogenous growth, where "human capital" is the engine of growth. By human capital we mean an intangible asset, best...

This paper offers a thesis for why the United States (US) overtook the United Kingdom (UK) and other European countries in the 20th century in both aggregate and per capita GDP as a case study of recent models of endogenous growth, where "human capital" is the engine of growth. By human capital...

The debate over whether political democracy is the least bad regime, as Churchill once said, remains unresolved because history has been ignored or misread, and because recent statistical studies have not chosen the right tests. Using too little historical information, and mistaking formal...

Productivity is a most important determinant of national wealth and standards of living. Scholars have shown that different welfare production regimes pursue distinct human capital formation policies to promote productivity. But do those government policies actually promote the productivity of...

This articles emphasizes the important role of human capital, manufacturing and imports to increase real income per inhabitant and non-agrarian employment. Some researchers specialized in economic growth analyse the export-led growth in many countries and insist upon the importance of openness...

A number of previous studies (Barro and Sala-i-Martin, Grier) have attempted to gauge the differential impact of regressors such as human capital and investment on the performance of fast and slow growing economies. To date, most such studies impose a single marginal impact on all countries for...

The paper studies the determinants of income distribution and growth in an overlapping generations economy withheterogenous households. Our framework has the following main features:heterogeneity of consumers with respect to wealth and parental human capital;intergenerational transfers,...

This paper aims at analyzing the astonishingly mild response of the German labor market to the severe demand shock that occurred in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It stresses the role of institutions such as working-time accounts which create a large scope for a buffering capacity within...

We consider differences in current job tenure of individuals using linked employee and workplace data. This enables us to distinguish between variation in tenure associated with the characteristics of individual employees and those of the workplace in which they work. The various individual...